Funny Garlic.

[michaeljohnson]

I bought a little basket of some funny looking new type garlic the other day, I say funny -because it wasn't like the normal garlic with lots of segments to break off, these were about as big as a walnut , white with purple streaks in the skin, but only one bulb with no segments to it, perfectly formed with a nice dry long neck to it, smelled quite good too.

We don't often buy garlic -only now and again to use on chickens and pork etc, but I have never seen any like these before-does anyone know what they call them as opposed to normal garlic.

I might try and plant one or two bulbs and grow them for future use.

[PatrickW]

Hi Michael,

That's called single clove garlic. There's not much point in planting it both because it's usually treated to prevent sprouting, and in any case it's probably ordinary garlic so will grow into a normal bulb. Søren has done some posts on this here:

toads.wordpress.com/2007/08/05/when-to-plant-your-garlic/

toads.wordpress.com/2008/12/23/single-clove-garlic/

[paquebot]

Plant a few. The single-clove ones are going to split when grown, as Sören mentioned. Those used to normally be rejected for sale but planted back. Somehow they've become popular for convenient slicing and dicing by chefs.

Don't worry about them having been sprayed to prevent sprouting. The most effective temporary treatment for alliums is MH-30 which is sprayed on the growing plants. So far, there hasn't been any reports of the Chinese using it on their garlic.

Martin

[michaeljohnson]

Yes-they look just exactly like the ones on the far right of the first picture in the first links-well I'm blowed -I never new that before.-thanks guys.